


I want to set this world on fire (send it up in flames)

by Forestgreengirl



Series: so wake me up when this is over (when im wiser and im older) [4]
Category: Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types
Genre: Ahsoka Tano & CT-7567 Are Best Friends, Ahsoka Tano Needs a Hug, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Anakin Skywalker Needs Therapy, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, Angst, Background Relationships, CT-7567 | Rex Needs a Hug, Emotional Manipulation, Hurt No Comfort, I Took A Sad Thing And Made It Worse, Introspection, Manipulative Sheev Palpatine, Mental Instability, Mind Control, Mind Manipulation, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Order 66, Sad Ending, Season/Series 07 Spoilers, The Dark Side of the Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-01
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-02 02:55:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23948011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Forestgreengirl/pseuds/Forestgreengirl
Summary: all heroes become matyrs,you have a kingdom, but you are no king.or(companion oneshots)
Relationships: 501st Legion & Ahsoka Tano, Anakin Skywalker & Ahsoka Tano, CC-1010 | Fox & Ahsoka Tano, CT-7567 | Rex & Ahsoka Tano, Obi-Wan Kenobi & Ahsoka Tano
Series: so wake me up when this is over (when im wiser and im older) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1678885
Comments: 6
Kudos: 92





	1. children should not have to fight to be young // ahsoka

**Author's Note:**

> TW: vomit mention, mind manipulation, general angst, war, death mention

Ahsoka is no stranger to pain, no stranger to the way fear slides down your back, and your hands tremble by your side. She’s no stranger to holding dying men in her arms, and begging the force to let them go  _ happy _ . She’s no stranger to watching people she loves fall around her, to be the last one standing. 

She isnt a stranger to war.

It doesn't make this hurt any less. 

She doesn't realise what's happening at first, doesn't understand why the force is screaming, or why everything around her feels like it's shifted, doesn't understand how the force goes  _ cold.  _ The cold that seems to fill her veins. 

She feels the bright flame of her former Master lash out in  _ every  _ direction, before seeming to burn her when she reaches out to it. Anakin had always been bright and all-consuming in the force, it used to almost tear Ahsoka apart when the bond was first established; but it never used to be like this, never used to leave her mouth tasting like ash, and her head feeling like it’s about to split.

She doesn't know what’s happening, she doesn't understand why Anakin’s presence in the force seems  _ twisted.  _

_ (She knows, she knows what he has done.)  _

Ahsoka always knew that Anakin was so bright in the force, she just never expected for Anakin to burn himself out. 

  
  


********

  
  


She turns, twisting on her heels as she tries to stay upright despite how her heart is racing, and everything feels so out of control. She needed to go make sure Anakin was okay, needed to know why the force was screaming about danger, practically its own red flashing light.

She finds Rex in one of the rooms, trembling hands clutching onto the cracked helmet. Ahsoka feels a spike of fear, she knew that Anakin and Rex had developed a fledgling force bond, so there was a high chance he was experiencing the same feedback of what had just happened to her, but it still doesn't explain why everything around Rex is so murky, why the force screams of  _ “danger”  _ and  _ “confusion”.  _

And Rex turns out and Ahsoka stumbles backwards, because her Rex’s eyes aren't that dull, and his face has never looked that coldly towards her. And there is a certain horror in Rex’s eyes, something terrified, and lost and  _ confused. _

It’s honestly a wonder she’s able to fight semi-coordinated, especially considering how everything seems to be passing by her so  _ quickly  _ that she feels like she’s about to slip sideways and into unconsciousness. Adrenaline seems to be the only thing keeping her going at this point. 

Rex flails more than she does, something frenzied and angry in his movements, it's a startling comparison to the blonde clones usual careful fighting style, much unlike Commander Cody. who was  _ very  _ angry off the battlefield. 

Thinking about Obi-Wan’s commander makes her heart clench, if Rex was doing this to her, wasn't there a chance this is happening elsewhere? When Ahsoka had been with the Jedi, as much as the war tired everyone out, Master Obi-Wan always had a bit more spark when with Cody, his force-presence glowed so much brighter. 

Ahsoka can’t fight Rex like she would fight anyone, this isn't Rex’s fault and she  _ won’t  _ kill Rex, no matter how much of her howls for revenge, Rex is her  _ best friend  _ and she knows for a fact that he would  _ never  _ hurt her willingly.

It hurt her to run away from her men, to hide away from the men she had shared so much time with, but she needed to find what Rex was talking about when he heaved out Five’s name through panicked breaths. Ahsoka doesn't know much about what happened with Fives and Tup, she was already gone by then. 

_ (Still the memory of how easily the Jedi threw her away haunts her, she doesn't think that will ever go away.)  _

She remembers hearing about how Fives thought there was a conspiracy within the Republic? After that she doesn't know much doesn't know much beyond how Commander Fox of the Coruscant Guard had pulled a blaster on a brother. That alone makes Ahsoka confused, because she had met Fox, she had spent multiple hours trading embarrassing stories about Rex with him, and while he was absolutely a stuck-up bastard, he wasn’t a murderer, and he loved his brothers. 

Five’s file is like a punch to the face, there's so much that just got  _ buried,  _ information that the Jedi, that the Senate needed to know. Why did nobody follow it up? Why did everyone so desperately accept a broken truth, why didn't they question when one of their most loyal troops went off the rails.

_ (Name me one hero who was happy.)  _

********

  
Going to  _ Maul  _ of all people makes her skin itch, she’s rarely met someone who burns with so much hatred; Anakin’s force-signature has always been hot to be around, making her head hurt if she tried to stare so long, and Master Obi-Wan had always bled in the force, a mismatched blend of sadness and determination.

Its something she noticed a year or so into her padawan ship, how Skyguy and Master Obi-Wan seemed to balance each other out, something chaotic in her grandmaster’s force-signature seemed to seemed to settle when around Anakin, and Anakin’s own force-signature seemed to be more warm than the usual overwhelming heat it usually was. 

Ahsoka loves Anakin, but despite how much she loved him, he was like her big brother; she could understand why some of the other Jedi couldn't be around him, there something awfully thrilling, and terrifying being around something so bright it could blind you. 

But right now Anakin wasn’t her focus, her focus was keeping the vile person that was Maul in line, and trying to find a way to work out what the  _ kriff  _ she was going to do to fix this. She just had to work out what was going to do about the rest of the 501st, and how the kark she was going to get Rex  _ out  _ from under the control of this chip thing. 

Somehow through this all she comes up with the mess of a plan, something that will either work, or she’ll die trying; and by the way this the force is shrieking with a grief she cant explain, death is seeming like a very good option. 

She does her best to avoid hurting her men, and doesn't want to be the reason for so much death  _ (Mandalore in ruins, because she couldn't contain Maul fast enough, she wasn't strong enough.)  _

Everything feels like its static around her, something angry and hurt and  _ terrified  _ has settled in her bones, and she wants to scream until it fades because  _ she can’t focus like this  _ and she needs to make sure her men are okay, and her Skyguy, and make sure her grandmaster is alive. 

Rex tells her of the conspiracy, of a plot of forcing the clones to turn on their Jedi, because they wont stop at knights, the padawans, the crechelings, the masters and the healers; nobody is safe what has been released. Her heart threatens to beat out of her chest, she feels faintly like she's about to vomit. 

Ahsoka has her issues with her Jedi  _ (something inside her roars with the need to burn it all down for what they did to her.)  _ but she is not  _ cruel, _ the thought of so many of the people who used to be her family dying all at once makes her blood boil, her eyes burning with unshed tears. 

For all that Ahsoka has spent her childhood at war, she doesn't have the clearest memories of any time before there was a war on the horizon. She knows war down into her bones, but she doesn't know this.

  
  


_ ( _ **_Burn it.)_ **

  
  


_ (Please let them be okay.)  _


	2. your chains are broken, but are you free? // anakin

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> heehoo

He was doing this for Padme, he was doing this to protect his wife, and his unborn child, and he was doing this to protect the ones he loves, he was doing a  _ good thing.  _ That’s what he tells himself, repeats it like a mantra even as the dark threatens to swallow him whole.

He has always felt in extremities, there had always been anger and righteousness burning in his veins, and he just wanted to  _ scream. _ Obi-Wan used to look at him and whisper about how badly he needs to  _ “control himself, or people are going to get hurt” _ . He always laughs, muttering something about being absolutely in control of his emotions, something cold resting in his bones. 

When he was a small 9 year old slave child, and this bright and  _ nice  _ Jedi Master came and freed him, gave him a chance to be what he wanted  _ (he never wanted to kill, never wanted to draw the blood, he only ever wanted to help)  _ he had thought he had left behind his chains, left them buried in sand dunes and under the Tatooine suns 

Except being a Jedi is not what he thought it was, there is glory and there is life and he’s able to  _ breathe, _ but it’s stifling and infuriating and he wants to  _ burn it all down. _

He is not of the Temple, for all that Anakin knows how to adapt, to bend himself into something else, the ways of the Jedi are not his ways, because no matter how long he spends within these temple walls, no matter how much Obi-Wan educates him; he will always remember what it feels like to be a slave boy on Tatooine. That is not something that can be erased.

There is always something standing between him and his Jedi loved ones. Everything in the force around him is heightened all the time, that shields are rendered useless, his emotions are always on display, inner turmoil there for any who will look. It scares the Jedi, they grow to fear his power, to fear what he can do. 

_ (fear leads to the dark side.)  _

Anakin is 9 year old and he’s a newly freed slave boy, and he’s 19 and the Order feels stifling, he can still feel the sun on his skin, and the taste of sand.

No matter how hard he throws himself into being a  _ good  _ Jedi, a  _ fair  _ Jedi, anger remains a second skin to him, and he never forgets the scorching heat of Tatooine. 

********

He never meant to kill Windu, never meant to hurt him, he only wanted him to stop, he needs Palpatine alive, he needs to keep Padme and their unborn child alive. 

He only means to stop Windu, to get everyone to take a moment to _breathe_ _(god he wishes Obi-Wan was here, he would know what to do. He wants his brother back.)_

But it all goes wrong so quickly, because one moment Mace is there, holding a lightsaber to someone who’s supposed to be Anakin’s  _ friends  _ neck, and the next the Jedi Master is like the window, and Palpatine look so  _ wrong,  _ and the force screams in his head so intensely he wants to pass out. 

_ “What have I done?”  _

He stumbles, legs shaking and chest heaving under the weight of what he’s just done. Palpatine looks so wrong and he’s grinning and Anakin feels like he’s slipping away; because there’s something on the edge of the force and it’s getting bigger and it’s getting  _ harder to breathe.  _

He’s doing it for Padme. He repeats it even as he kneels in front of the Chancellor ( _ “the Sith Lord” his mind whispers),  _ as he fights against every instinct to _ protect himself.  _

Something inside him screams as he kneels, and he can feel the way the dark side coats his mind, mouth tasting of ash and blood, and hot sand.

The ringing in his head gets louder, a high pitched whine following after, he wants to press his head between his knees and gasp for air, he wants to see Obi-Wan, and he wants to see Padme, and he wants to see Ahsoka, and Rex and he wants to see  _ his men;  _ and he wants  _ it to stop burning.  _

The dark side, above all else is seductive, it creeps into your veins and holds you hostage in your mind. Anakin has watched Jedi fall, has seen his Padawan balancing on that delicate line. He’s heard Obi-Wan’s lectures about what falling to the dark side can  _ do. _

They never told him how it feels like it’s going to swallow him whole, how it feels like everything around him is so  _ cold  _ and he can’t feel his loved ones anymore.

Anakin has power, he can break his chains, and he can save who he loves and there isn’t  _ anyone to stop him.  _ Lord Sidious have him power, power to destroy his Jedi Prison, to save his wife and child, to make sure that nobody hurts what is  _ his  _ again. 

But chains will always be chains, no matter how golden. And he will always be a slave boy from tatooine.

_ (“What have I done”)  _

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m sorry- I just watched the final two episodes and I have So Many feelings, and I am once again angry about what happened to my boys- 
> 
> come chat on tumblr! (@forestgreengirl)

**Author's Note:**

> wow I am,, Sorry?? It only gets worse from here-
> 
> New ep has me Fucked Up so I did THIS-
> 
> come chat on tumblr!! (@forestgreengirl)


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